Midsummer's Day
by Ris Fallon
Summary: Will and Lyra made a promise, to visit the same bench, in their own worlds, once a year for an hour, or something. Just so that they could feel together again, and feel connected. LxW TWOSHOT
1. Lyra's Oxford

**Author's note:** Yes. Well. I know I have others to update, but if it makes anyone feel better, this is only a measley little two shot! So if you don't like it, click the back space now and there will be an update for one of my Digimon stories soonish. But if you the fact that Philip Pullman's books are the shizniz, and think Will and Lyra are bittersweet and adorable, then by all means, read, and review, and make my life complete. Silent watchers can kiss mine, because I just delete your notification without looking at what story was watched. I know. I'm mean. Gettheheckoverit.

MOVING ON!

I find it amusing. Romeo and Juliet, the whole shindig was Midsummer's day. And now, Lyra and Will. I personally like the second couple better, they weren't idiots who threw their lives away, but decided to _do_ something with them. But yea. Still. The idea of the park bench was way cute, and so... I had to be a total fan girl and gush about it for a little. Enjoy!!

* * *

It was raining. Rain fell in torrents as Lyra ducked through the gates of St. Sophia's. She..._sort_ of had permission to leave. Like, when she actually asked for it. But she didn't have time for that now. She had promised Will, and be it six months or six years, she would never break that promise to him. She had to get to that bench. She just _had_ to. Not that she had an answer for Pan why it would be so tragically awful if she was a moment late, but he didn't ask for one either. He was anxious too, and she kept having to call out his name in a hiss of a warning as he strayed farther than a normal daemon ought to stray. Even in her haste, she knew that they had to maintain their composure. How many, after all, would believe her rush was to reach a bench to sit at the same place as a boy from another world that she could not physically see?

No, no, they had to slow down. She called Pan to her arms as the rain fell harder, a stream of icy water that made her gasp when it slipped between the gap between hair, flesh, and clothing like an icy finger running the length of her spine. She wished she could yank her hair out of its bun, and let its long dark blond waves protect her from the rain, but a young woman, she was constantly reminded, did not take down her hair. Certainly not in public. It wasn't ladylike. She certainly had a few things to say about being ladylike right then, but she simply bit down hard on her lower lip and pressed herself to run harder. She had further incentive to reach the bench, for there was a tree whose far reaching branches would give them cover, however meager it was.

"Pan," she asked in a whisper, not because she wanted no one to hear, but because the thought seemed intimidating to voice outloud. No one would guess anything other worldly, or strange about a girl asking her daemon about a supposed date. "Do you think Will will be there? Do you really?" She tried to sound nonchalant, as though it were just a question to ask for the sake of having something to say, but Pan was her Daemon. He knew her, of course, better than anybody could. Certainly he knew her better than she herself did.

"Of course." And he sounded so absolute, so completely sure of Will, that Lyra's doubt was swept away as though washed from her mind with the rain that dripped from her hair, onto her bodice and her skirts. And oh, she was getting so very out of shape sitting in that library, struggling to balance learning to be a 'proper' girl and her school studies and relearning to read the alethiometer. Her lungs were burning, and her heart was thudding wildly beneath her breasts, and she found that, when she asked herself the reason, she couldn't quite tell if it was because she was about to be as close to Will as they ever might be again, or because the work out was indeed straining her muscles, so out of practice compared to the laborous walking her body had once been put through.

That seemed so long ago, it was as though it had happened to another girl. If she couldn't remember Roger's face, pale and nigh transparent with ghostly palor, the terrible, heart wrenching feeling of leaving her poor, beloved Pan on death's shores, or the feel of her fingers against Will's lips, his lips against hers and the strength of his embrace, then she would never believe that any of it had ever happened. But she did, and that was why she so earnestly ran for the bench.

And finally, it was within sight, and she let out a cheer for there was no one around, and she hugged Pan tightly to her chest and then she paused. Every year, this seemed like such a very important moment. She had to take a deep breath, a shuddering gasp as though her heart had been tricked into believing she would _see_ Will if she made it here. But she wouldn't. And her mind reminded her heart that might never happened, and her heart released another sigh of longing while Pan nuzzled her chin, and then she sat down on the bench, leaving ample room for Will to sit, as though he was truly filling the invisible gap beside her.

"Hello Will, Darling. I love you."

It was the first thing she said every year, at the same time, in the same place. And she wondered, sometimes, if he did the very same. If he spoke to her as though if he only reached out far enough, he could brush his hand against her cheek again. She wondered if he said out loud that he loved her, or if he sat there in that silent way of Will's, just thinking to himself. She hoped he thought to himself, if that was the case, that he loved her and missed her as truly and whole heartedly as Lyra did. Although she would never admit it out loud, she had changed a lot to be who she thought Will wanted her to be. He had taught her to be discreet, and so she no longer show-boated and bragged about her stories and successes, or tried to glorify her failures. He taught her to be brave, and to fight when there was no other option, but also to not fight if there was another way. Whether she had mellowed because she grew older, or because she knew Will, was a question one would never find the answer to.

She ran her hands along the folds of her skirt, drenched as it was it was difficult to make out the color. Not that it was anything truly remarkable. It was a deep set blue, an outfit bought for her birthday passed by a girl she had become relatively close friends with in St. Sophia's. Her name was Elsa, short for Elizabeth. And it was she who Lyra told Will about the most, because she was the first friend beside Roger and Will that she had made of her own age. There had been other kids to play with, of course, but they were different. Play mates were not always your friends. But Elsa smiled at Lyra as though they were equals, not as though she were plotting some horrid scheme as Lyra used to do when the townies and clay burners were at war.

"There's something I don't understand though," she spoke aloud, and Pan tilted his head at her curiously from where he sat preening himself, curled up in a ball beside her on the bench so that he could feel her warm body through the frigid rain that Lyra seemed to have turned oblivious to. "How is Elsa short for Elizabeth, I wonder? It's so strange. Do they have nicknames like that in your world, Will? I wonder, what is Will short for? Is it for William, or Wilhelm, or Willis, or Wilson, or...Oh, I don't know. I never did ask you before." She paused as though she were expecting an answer to spell itself out of the rain drops that fell with a noisy clatter into puddles, where they reunited with their fallen friends. Lyra stared at that puddle, and for a moment Pan thought that perhaps she wasn't quite seeing it.

"I envy them, Will," she said quietly. It took her Daemon but a moment to realize she meant the rain drops. "They separate only to meet again. They'll never be apart. Not truly." And she felt her eyes sting, but that wasn't acceptable at all. She didn't like crying in front of Will, even if she did when she felt full of fear and dispair and utter hopelessness. But she felt silly afterwards, as though Will frowned at her tears. He did, of course, but not out of disappointment. Only with despair that he couldn't end them. That was her last memory, him holding her while she cried, tears filling his eyes too, and he looked so _miserable_.

But they had made a promise, Lyra reminded herself, and she took a deep, deep breath before standing up and splashing in the puddle. The water, of course, did not truly separate. Some stuck together, to find new social puddles to mingle with, and others did not leave their original puddle at all. And although the act filled her boots with chilled water that sent a shiver through her entire body, it made her feel a little better. She felt alive again, she could move and _do_ things, and when their particles became Everything again, and they could join together forever, then she'd make sure Will was _proud_ of what she could do, of what she _did_ do. She would make sure her life was filled with exciting Truths for the Harpies, so that she could get through to the other side as quickly as possible, to join her beloved in the sky and the grass and the butterflies and the leaves and the dirt and _everything_, and she smiled.

She said all this out loud, too, although she had said it to Will before they parted indefinitely. It felt important, just then, to remind him wherever he was that she had not forgotten. She'd not forgotten about Midsummer's Day, or Dust, or helping the worlds so that one day, when there was peace and happiness and ample dust, they could open a window and hold hands again, even if only for the briefest of moments. She closed her eyes, and sat back on the bench beside Pan, who crawled into her lap. His furred head brushed against her palm and she petted him with slow, distracted movements. It was clear she barely acknowledged she was doing it at all.

"Lyra," he said quietly, affectionately nipping at her fingertip as it neared too close to his eyes, "you're going to catch a cold. It's been well over an hour. Maybe we should..." The question drifted off into nothingness, for Pan didn't truly want to leave either, to set forth to face another year of hard work without being entirely sure what they ought to be doing to _help_, except that Lyra knew she needed to be smart, so that she could get opportunities, the way her mother Mrs. Coulter had. But what to do with those opportunities, Lyra wasn't entirely sure. She took a deep breath, and exhaled.

"In a little while, Pan my dear," she insisted, like a child pleading with their mother for five more minutes. Pan just nuzzled her hand again, and they lapsed into silence for a while. Neither really noticed that the rain was slowly letting up, fading to a half-hearted drizzle as the sky lightened and patches of blue began to struggle more spiritedly to break free of their clouded prison. She didn't know how much time had passed anymore, and Lyra found she didn't truly care. The state of her clothes would be enough to make the headmistress annoyed. What did being late matter now? After all, there were no classes she was required to attend today... She had planned nothing but studying, and surely a few hours break from that would be harmless?

"Will, darling, are you still there," she asked quietly, and although she expected no reply, she still wished that someday, one might come. Her hands formed into fists on her lap, and Pan licked at them consolingly. He missed her other half as well, and his Soul. Or, Daemon now. She had shown her form, and chosen one to keep with permanently at the same moment as Pan. He pitied his human's situation, pained at her sorrow, and cooed worriedly at her distress and anxiety over her future, something that had seemed so insignificant before but now seemed like such an immense, daunting task that she did not know what to do next with.

"Help me Will. You helped me so much. Help me figure out what my part in this is. What can I do to make things balance again?" It was a desperate act, to beg an unseen person to answer her questions. But no answer would come, from anyone. As Will had said, they had to decide on their own. If someone provided the answer, she would surely hate them for it. Lyra wanted to control at least this bit of her destiny, for now no one as whispering of prophecies and things to come, there was no one hunting her down or endangering her, and she hoped not Will. She had a chance to live now, to live how she wanted and to _change_ things. They had to repair the damage of thousands of windows opened between the worlds. But how? Oh... How? Again, she fell into silence, not for lack of things to tell Will, but for she was so lost in the thought of this task that was so much larger than the two of them.

"Lyra," Pan said quietly, and she nodded and clung to him tightly. He did not object, but let her cuddle and cling to him like she did when she was little and felt lonely. That was what a daemon was for, after all. So that their person never felt lonely, never _was_ lonely, because a person couldn't truly survive without their daemon. Even if it was simply hidden out of sight, it was still there. The idea of not ever having a friend, a daemon, was absolutely devastating. She remembered, when she had to leave him alone on that dark, desolate shore... looking for him, everywhere for him, of the horror she felt when she saw that little boy clinging to a frozen fish, wishing it was his daemon. She shivered, although Pan wasn't entirely sure that it was because she was soaking wet with rain water.

"No, I know," Lyra said quietly. She looked up at the clouds, which were not quite ready to take the rest of their burden and move along. They were lighter though... Lyra wished she felt how the clouds looked. She felt heavier. That could, however, be because her skirts had absorbed so much water. She felt as though she were trying to wade through the river fully clothed. "Let's go home, Pan. I'm feeling rather hungry, aren't you?"

"I want a strudel," Pan said, and she could tell he was happy she was letting her mind think back to the here, and the now. It was harder for both of them to focus if one of them was day dreaming, and they both did miss their other half dearly. "Or muffins. With blueberries, and fresh milk."

"The cream is better," Lyra said nonchalantly, holding out her arms for Pan to climb into them before standing up. "I sort of fancy a hot sandwich. With chicken, and sauce, and--"

"That's not a snack," Pan said reproachfully. Lyra rolled her eyes.

"Whoever said I was hungry for a snack?"

They walked slowly from the bench, the beloved bench that was their only connection, the bench where Lyra knew she would be a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now. But it still took all her self control to hold her head high and walk away without a backward glance. But she did pause during her casual banter with Pan, which was little more than a practiced conversation that they fell into every time one of them wanted and needed a distraction from what they were really thinking about, to say a murmured "I love you", which an ordinary person might not have heard, but her daemon knew, and he climbed to her shoulder to be able to look behind them while Lyra walked back towards St. Sophia's, trying desperately to think of a way to explain to the headmistress why she had gone out without an umbrella.


	2. Will's Oxford

**Author's note:** People are gonna get mad at me for updating this first, I guarentee it. But, I needed to stroke my ego. You realize my only completed multi-chapter story, I deleted because it was being ripped off left and right? Depressing, seriously. So I needed one "completed" on my list. Don't worry, I've got the others in progress. I'm just in a bit of a stump, and Will (ironically) was being a more cooperative muse. So we'll end this on a bittersweet note, and then I'll go on and entertain the minds of disturbingly sadistic fangirls. The worst part? I'm one of them. Oh, dear me.

_**PS:**_ I like Lyra's version best. What do you think?

**Edit:** It was pointed out to be that I accidentally (repeatedly) typed Kaisa after the first couple times. Sorry about that! Thanks for not like, burning me at the stake for it. But yea, fixed that. Thanks again for the correction, mate.

* * *

It may have been a wet and rainy day in Lyra's beloved Oxford, but the sun was hot and bright where Will was. It did not, however, succeed in making the day enjoyable. It was terribly humid, and Will had walked to the garden where he promised Lyra he would meet her each year. By the time he collapsed on the bench, he was drenched with sweat, and it clung to him uncomfortably. All Will knew was, Lyra was damned lucky he missed her more than he had words to express. He might have been a little consoled had he known that Lyra was not in a much better state, except she was drenched with rain water. But of course, he couldn't know. He never knew anything that happened to her. Had she found someone else yet?

The thought hit him suddenly, and with such force that he might have staggered had he been standing. As it was, Will couldn't help but put grip the bench's arm rest a little bit harder as Kirjava mewed and leaped onto his lap. Contrary to Pan and Lyra, they tried keep a little distance in public, but nobody seemed to be around. They were all being smart and keeping indoors, with the air conditioning blasting and something on the television while Will was being all _honorable_. He refused to call it stupid though. It was his "thinking place". That was what he called it to a friend of Mary's who had asked where he was going. A simple walk didn't seem to be a good enough reason anymore. In Oxford today, you had to have a reason for doing everything. It was really bloody annoying.

But that wasn't what was on his mind right now. Mary was alright, and her friend (colleague, she had insisted defensively, for she had landed herself a new job after suspicion seemed to wear off) could be worse, Will supposed. He didn't really care. That was Mary's business. But this thought, this fleeting idea that Lyra might have already found somebody new, someone who could hold her hand all day long and sit beside her on the bench in the same world, seeing the same sky and living the same life. She could have found someone else to kiss when she thought no one was looking, and someone else to sneak off with when lectures and day to day routines got boring and mundane. They had promised they would, if someone they liked came along. They promised not to put their own lives on hold for the sake of Maybe, for the chance at Possibly. It was likely the worlds' balance would never be restored completely in their lifetime, not enough to risk opening a window to her world. It was indeed a depressing thought, one Will tried to suppress. But when he was here, alone at his "thinking place", sometimes these unwanted thoughts crept up on him with little to no warning.

Unlike Pan and Lyra, Kirjava and Will didn't speak much during these times. Kirjava didn't try tell Will that it was time to go home, or even that he should drink some from his water bottle, which lay seemingly forgotten on the empty bench beside him. It might have seemed strange, if he knew how Lyra spent her Midsummer's Day. Would he have moved the water bottle if he knew that Lyra kept the other half of the bench open, as though he was sitting right beside her? He didn't even know that she still went to the bench she had pointed out what seemed like so long ago, though he was sure she did. He didn't doubt Lyra's loyalty, or her stubbornness to continue until she was physically apprehended. He did wonder if, once she found someone to share her days with, and her self-appointed missions (for he also had faith in her sense of adventure), if she would tell him about Will. He wondered what she would say, if she would bite her lip and lower her eyes the way she did when she felt guilty. He wondered if the other guy would mind. The _other _guy. That was the only way he could think of it. It wasn't just a guy. It was his replacement. He had to feel a little resentment towards the hand they had been dealt; he was, after all, only human.

He hadn't even been able to so much as look at another girl, in all that time. Lyra would probably roll her eyes. She'd say he was breaking his promise, that he said he'd not compare another girl to her. And that was true; he had. But he couldn't help it. He saw a glimpse of blond and thought of her, or heard a girl laugh and remembered her, or saw strawberries and his heart hurt. Like, really hurt. He thought that was an exaggeration, once upon a time. He thought that heart break and all that stuff was just melodramatics, people being sore that they didn't get their way, that their lives hadn't turned out exactly as they had planned in that moment. But he had gleaned a little sympathy for them over the years, found it a little bit harder to laugh at chick flicks and movie romances that were so sweet that he actually felt the need to go brush his teeth lest he get cavities. He'd had a romance like that, once. And now it was gone.

A purr, and Will absently pet Kirjava. His thoughts were getting too far gone, he was slipping too much. She brought him back to reality a little. There were no words exchanged. There was no utter of gratitude, because it went without saying. They were not a pair of many words; all they had to say flowed between the bond of human and Daemon, or soul, or whatever you wanted to call it. Will was still a little confused about all that. Kirjava was sometimes the only thing, the only one that kept him from believing it was all a dream, from leaving Mary's and returning to his life in the shadows, going from place to place, paranoid but feeling oddly safe in the movement. She was the one who linked him to Lyra and Pan, who kept him sitting on the bench when he sometimes wanted little more than to ignore the heartache and return to normalcy. Sometimes it was all a little too much to bear. And that was where Kirjava came in.

A little girl was playing nearby. He hadn't realized the sound at first, but then her laughter carried to him on the wind. A family had come to enjoy the gardens, to bask in the shade cast by the glorious trees and to enjoy the sunshine in the only way the humidity seemed to allow. But he couldn't quite bring himself to leave yet; it had only been a little more than an hour. Kirjava, though, slinked off to do... whatever Kirjava did. Kept an eye on him from a distance, Will figured. He wasn't too concerned. She would never leave him forever, and that made him feel safe. He didn't feel so insecure, and so uneasy in his and Lyra's sanctuary of sorts, to call her back. She melted into the shadows, a subtle blend of blue and black that allowed her to blend in beautifully, just as he had done for his entire life. They were really one and the same, Will and his Kirjava. It made him think of Lyra and Pan, and their relationship. The feeling of when they had first touched one another's Daemons. He couldn't describe it; it was shock, and pleasure, and fear, and excitement, and all those feelings that holding hands for the first time brought up. And he wanted to feel it again. Only with Lyra though. No one else would understand Kirjava, and if they couldn't understand her... how could they possibly love him?

He kicked a pebble as the girl's laughter carried closer, though it was not as infectious as it might have been to anyone else on any other day. It seemed to make Will broodier, because it reminded him that he wasn't the sort that laughed and frolicked, and threw himself _out there_, at least how Lyra did. She would have made friends with the girl, and gone running off with her to tell some wild adventure that might have been true, but that nobody would believe, and she would've smiled because _she_ knew. But Will didn't feel comfortable with just that. He wasn't as open, as loving and warm and approachable as Lyra was. He didn't have that natural ease with social situations that made him not care, because he knew what else mattered. He didn't know. Lyra was the other half of him, and better, she knew about Kirjava, and knew the importance of her, and knew _everything_, it seemed. And he was breaking his promise, he thought with a humorless smirk. Right there, just by refusing to even consider the idea that there might be more than one person out there for someone. He had to admit, it was a difficult concept to consider from Lyra's bench.

A rubber ball bounced past him, almost in slow motion. It was kind of comical. He wondered if that was him going insane for one wild moment before he heard a loud cry, and a man's voice saying "I told you to be careful; it probably fell into the river or something." And the little girl was crying harder, although her father's voice wasn't exactly unkind. He sounded as though he had given that warning before. Don't let it go, you'll lose it. What a painful lesson for a little kid to learn. Without thinking, Will stuck out his foot to stop the ball. It rolled over, but slowed enough for him to stoop down to catch it. He kind of liked this better than sitting there, just... sitting there. He wasn't used to the prolonged inactivity, the sitting there, the... nothing. Just, thinking. Remembering. Wanting, wishing, yearning, praying, begging, pleading, loving and hating and sighing in defeat. That was doing a whole lot for sitting there, staring at the sky and trying to ignore the fact that he wished he brought shades.

"My ball! My ball!"

"Amanda! Slow--- Ah, forget it," the father said with exasperation. He fell from a jog to a walk, allowing his daughter to sprint ahead after her prized possession, which Will was holding in his hands, still sitting on the bench. She skidded to a stop, looking uncertain. Avoid the stranger, or claim what was hers? He wasn't stopping her. He held out his hand, tried to... channel Lyra, her easy going personality, and her approachability, and _her_, tried to be what he learned from her. It kind of worked... maybe, sort of, he hoped. She took a step closer, the scurried over to take her ball before stepping away again. And by this time, her father had caught up again, and he was frowning.

"What do you say?" She shrugged, the way little kids did when they were pretending to know less than they really did. Maybe it hadn't worked after all; maybe she just really, really wanted her ball. Ah well... he could work on that. He could practice. He had no reason to slink in the shadows anymore, did he? The danger was behind them, no one had made any inquiries in a long time and Lyra was safe too, from the Church and everything else. At least, that was what Will wished. He wished for her more than for his own selfishness, or maybe _because _of his selfishness. He hoped she was still the Lyra he remembered, a force to be reckoned with, a whirlwind of energy and determination to challenge the weather itself.

"Thank you," the father said warily, nudging his daughter's shoulder when she didn't speak when prompted. Will shrugged. It wasn't a problem. He told the guy so, too. It was just a ball. A prized possession. It meant something to the little girl, or she wouldn't have tears making her eyes bright as she embraced it to her chest. Like the girl's favorite doll, because Will supposed all had one from what he could tell, she would remember her toys, how one almost bounced away. Even when it finally popped, or rolled along into traffic, and was unable to be fetched back. She would remember that the ball, the baby doll, once made her smile. And Will was surprised to think that was a good thing, to remember. Even if his heart hurt and he found himself wanting to cry at the thought, precious things should be remembered.

He excused himself not long after, for the father had joined him on the bench while the little girl played. He didn't know where Kirjava was; she was probably watching from the shadows. She was watching, making sure he didn't snap. Well, in his words. She didn't think he would snap. She just let him work her fur beneath his fingers when he was quieter than usual, which was saying something most assuredly. She licked his hand if his fingers shook, she distracted him when he had wallowed for long enough. And he thanked her for it, in his mind if not out loud. She knew; like Lyra, Kirjava seemed to just _know_. She just seemed to understand, with a glance at his eyes. He missed that connection with Lyra. But she had been right; they might meet other people some day.

But he would never love another quite like he loved Lyra, and he had never promised her that.

Kirjava


End file.
